From Genes to Gonads: Molecular Control Points of Reproduction in the Sea Urchin as a Framework for Aquaculture
- 1Molecular Microbiology Laboratory, Department of Marine Biotechnology, Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada Baja California, Ensenada 22860, Baja California, Mexico
Abstract
The economic output of sea urchin aquaculture depends almost entirely on a single organ. Gonads, marketed as uni, determine value through their size, color, texture and flavor, and feed formulations have been optimized empirically for decades with limited reference to the molecular machinery governing gametogenesis, sex differentiation and gonadal maturation in echinoids. This review integrates four lines of mechanistic evidence around the adult gonad, namely developmental gene regulatory networks, sex-biased gonadal transcriptomics, germ-cell and nutritive-phagocyte biology, and endocrine, neuroendocrine and retinoid signaling, and reads them in terms of the control points connecting molecular state to production outcome. Rather than advancing a unified mechanistic model, which the current evidence does not support, each component is classified by the strength of the evidence attached to it: demonstrated in an echinoid, inferred from another taxon, plausible but untested, or hypothetical. The resulting picture is one in which descriptive resources have outpaced functional tests. Candidate sex-determination transcription factors have been identified but none have yet been directly perturbed in an echinoid, the retinoid pathway is architecturally present yet biochemically incomplete, and responses to exogenous steroids remain heterogeneous across species and protocols. Priority experimental directions are ranked by commercial return and by experimental falsifiability.
Related
- A 16S rRNA-Based Screening Framework Reveals Distinct Microbial and Antimicrobial Resistance-Related Fingerprints in Aquaculture and Municipal Wastewater Effluents
- Time to sustained control of the effective reproduction number as a failure-time estimand: a county-level analysis of the first SARS-CoV-2 wave in the United States.
- The role of LLPS of biomacromolecules in the gonads and related diseases
- Arcuate kisspeptin neurons display two types of calcium events: Regulation by sex, gonads, and senktide
- Investigation into the effects of sodium valproate on prepubertal mouse gonads in vivo
BibTeX
@article{rodriguez2026from,
title = {{From Genes to Gonads: Molecular Control Points of Reproduction in the Sea Urchin as a Framework for Aquaculture}},
author = {Alfonso Rodríguez and Jorge Olmos},
journal = {International Journal of Molecular Sciences},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3390/ijms27198939},
url = {https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/27/19/8939},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - From Genes to Gonads: Molecular Control Points of Reproduction in the Sea Urchin as a Framework for Aquaculture
AU - Alfonso Rodríguez
AU - Jorge Olmos
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/08
JO - International Journal of Molecular Sciences
DO - 10.3390/ijms27198939
UR - https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/27/19/8939
AB - The economic output of sea urchin aquaculture depends almost entirely on a single organ. Gonads, marketed as uni, determine value through their size, color, texture and flavor, and feed formulations have been optimized empirically for decades with limited reference to the molecular machinery governing gametogenesis, sex differentiation and gonadal maturation in echinoids. This review integrates four lines of mechanistic evidence around the adult gonad, namely developmental gene regulatory networks, sex-biased gonadal transcriptomics, germ-cell and nutritive-phagocyte biology, and endocrine, neuroendocrine and retinoid signaling, and reads them in terms of the control points connecting molecular state to production outcome. Rather than advancing a unified mechanistic model, which the current evidence does not support, each component is classified by the strength of the evidence attached to it: demonstrated in an echinoid, inferred from another taxon, plausible but untested, or hypothetical. The resulting picture is one in which descriptive resources have outpaced functional tests. Candidate sex-determination transcription factors have been identified but none have yet been directly perturbed in an echinoid, the retinoid pathway is architecturally present yet biochemically incomplete, and responses to exogenous steroids remain heterogeneous across species and protocols. Priority experimental directions are ranked by commercial return and by experimental falsifiability.
SN - 1422-0067
ER -